That time I thought synthetic oil was a gimmick until a customer's 450,000-mile Cummins convinced me otherwise

I always ran conventional in my own rigs but a guy came in with a 2004 Ram with 450k on it, never rebuilt, and swore by Rotella T6, so I switched my F-350 over 50,000 miles ago and the oil analysis keeps coming back clean, who else here was dead set against synthetics and got proven wrong by real world results?

2 comments

2 Comments

mia_singh2417d ago

nah i gotta disagree on this one. i still think synthetic is overhyped for most people. i ran conventional in my 02 f250 for like 180k miles before i sold it, engine was still solid when i let it go. oil analysis came back fine every time i bothered to check. sure that cummins with 450k is impressive but how many people actually drive that far? most trucks get traded in way before that. and the real kicker is the price difference - i can do two conventional changes for the cost of one synthetic. if you're religious about 5k mile intervals conventional works just fine unless you're towing heavy or in extreme temps all the time.

river_scott17d ago

My buddy was dead set against synthetics in his old 7.3 Powerstroke, swore it was just snake oil for people with money to burn. He finally caved after his oil cooler clogged twice on conventional and switched to synthetic, hit 350k miles before he sold it and the engine never skipped a beat. Now he won't run anything else and gives me grief every time I fill my truck with the cheap stuff.